Minnie is not strong enough to be outside at night yet, she manages well in the daytime, sticking to the barn, the woodshed, the porch when it’s sunny. She is still moving awkwardly, I have the sense she is still in pain sometimes, she withdraws, seems uncomfortable. After her afternoon feeding, we bring her inside, she loves to lie on Frieda’s bed, she makes a lot of noise, she is quite comfortable around the dogs – Frieda seems to be nervous around her, sort of like Lon Cheney’s character in the “Werewolf” who fears what’s inside of him – Lenore always comes up to her and licks her on the head. After dinner, and with some help, she gets up on the sofa where we read, talk, once in awhile watch a movie on our TV, and she becomes the Calico Cat to me, she seems to vanish into the quilt, the sofa, Maria’s shirt.
To me, she has become a part of one of Maria’s quilts, she blends into it, her stump absorbed in fabric, it camouflages her, I see this so clearly and when I stand over the sofa and take a photo, it seems to fit, this blending of her life into ours, for what is life but a quilt? She and Maria fuse sometimes, this is the life of an artist and an artist’s stricken barn cat.